Last Sunday afternoon our household temporarily contained two adults and one kid, so naturally I bolted to see The Avengers on the big screen. (Chad saw it opening day.)

I didn't want to miss all the happenings around the release date, so I had already familiarized myself with the movie; as a result, some of you may have seen me discuss parts of this already, though I am trying not to repeat myself too much.

And now, SPOILERS.

Some big-picture things first.

• I have the vague impression that it is not universally accepted that Loki (1) was acting under some duress and (2) deliberately let himself be captured so he could fuck around with the eventually-Avengers' heads? If so, I am surprised, as I thought it was clear.
• That said, my failure to give a damn about Loki (or Thor) continues. (I found Thor the movie incredibly boring.) I don't even Things To Say about the way adoption narratives are being used in Thor and this movie, okay, that's how little I care.

  (Well, except that "He's adopted" was horribly out of character and offensive for a cheap laugh.)

• I can see how people would have problems with the early pacing of the movie, but it didn't bother me at all. This probably means that the tack Whedon originally took, using Steve as a POV character and having a lot more about his adjustment, was properly jettisoned, but if I don't get the Peggy-Steve reunion scene that Whedon wrote in some form or another I will be VERY UPSET.

Which slides us into character stuff:

• But I don't think that the tiny bits of background and development we do get are enough to do Steve justice, which makes me sad because he is my favorite.
• Captain America 2 should be the Winter Soldier with lots and lots of Natasha, if we are not actually getting a Black Widow movie, please please please?
• As far as intros go, I am hoping that coffeeandink will write more on the topic, but I think it's significant that the assembling part of the movie starts with Natasha and then Bruce, since the movie does the most character development with the two of them. (They are, I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear, my second favorites. (It's a tie.))
• And Natasha kicking things off signals how much she will be a central mover of the plot.
• Natasha was awesome; Hill was awesome and probably got as much to do as she could under the circumstances but I still wanted to see more of her; Pepper looked happy! but I would have liked to see her working the phones to find War Machine or get disaster relief organized or whatnot while keeping an eye on the news and then being riveted by Tony's suicide run; really, we couldn't have any Jane at all? don't tell me the budget wouldn't stretch to include Natalie Portman; SHIELD seemed very white except for Fury; the use of Calcutta sucked.

Vaguely plot-ish:

• Cognitive reset via head trauma is stupid, but it's not the kind of movie that would have it only seem to work. Or, probably, to have Loki secretly half-assing it, acting under duress not withstanding.
• The use of Coulson's death is annoying. The only one it would actually motivate is Tony, and shouldn't he be past that now? Manpain, I am tired of you.
• Yay big easy-to-follow action setpieces with nice character moments.

Minor details:

• At the end: I imagine Natasha tells Clint something about acid dripping into eyes or lips being sewn together, yes? She is the one to give Bruce his bag so he can go wherever (with Tony to be science buddies, I sincerely hope, because adorable). Steve goes up to Tony to shake his hand.
• Pepper is wearing a big ugly ring, but throughout the whole movie, and on her right hand not her left.
• Two ravens flew by when Thor and Loki were Shakespearing at each other.
• Both Maria and Natasha are wearing wedges as discussed here regarding Natasha, but I only noticed because I was looking, and the scene where I spotted them on Natasha, she was walking with Steve on the helicarrier, who's about 8" taller than her if the Internet can be believed.
• It goes by really fast, but those blueprints Tony unrolls at the end and looks at are living quarters for each Avenger. (So, fandom, you don't need to write "Tony being bemused at everyone living in the Tower" fic. He planned on it.)

Anyway: yay team, yay 3/6 of the team individually, yay action. I had fun.

Movie trailers: Prometheus, so not my kind of thing. Dark Knight Rises, enh, I confess to imprinting on Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman as a kid and my opinion of the last movie has dropped with time, but we'll see. The Spidey reboot, fails to get around the problem of Tobey Maguire having been perfect for the role, even though the series itself fell apart around him. Brave, too scary for SteelyKid alas but I might go see it. Frankenweenie, Burton stop-motion story of a boy and his resurrected dog, no opinion.